They're public in that they don't require tuition, and I guess you would say 'private' because they're not the regular large public schools.
I think the key difference is that the teachers want results. There aren't a whole lot of public schools where that's true.
Fortunately, there are SOME...........and my kids went to one of them.
Would you say then similar to our grammar or technical schools which you have to pass an entrance exam for and really are based at the top 5 - 10% academically then?